information and Stories about woman and female empowerment.

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To Solve World Hunger, Ask the Ladies

To Solve World Hunger, Ask the Ladies
Each year, World Hunger Day is celebrated to raise awareness around the issue of global hunger. The day is celebrated on May 28th and this year Women Thrive Worldwide called on lawmakers to ask women when considering the fight against global hunger. To successfully eradicate hunger, issues like women’s rights, economic empowerment, and access to resources must be addressed.

Women Thrive Worldwide is one of the leading organizations championing the cause of women in Washington. They are working to call leaders in Washington to realize the effects of hunger on women and see the opportunity available to reduce worldwide hunger through changing the resources available to women in developing countries. Elise Young, Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs at Women Thrive Worldwide called on leaders to support the reforms to food aid and to continue to recognize the impact and value of women in the fight against world hunger.

Women around the world get hit the hardest when food shortages arise or when food prices spike. 60 to 70% of all food grown in developing countries is farmed and grown by women. Yet when shortages happen, it is women who often eat last or eat less. The food aid reforms President Obama has proposed would enable women to become active players in the market where they can buy and sell their goods. The proposed changes will directly impact women, local economies, and the developing world and continue to reduce the global impact of hunger.

Almost half of food produced worldwide is done so by women and in developing countries those percentages reach up to 60-80%. When shocks hit, women will sacrifice their food quantity and quality to serve and provide for their families which leaves them vulnerable. Research shows that empowering women and providing them with adequate resources could reduce the number of hungry people by 100-150 million.  It is important today to support food aid reforms and the empowerment of women worldwide in order to continue towards the eradication of world hunger.

– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: Women Thrive Worldwide
Photo: Oxfam

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Expanding Contraceptive Access in Africa

Expanded Contraceptive Access
At the Women Deliver 2013 conference, one of the topics discussed was expanding contraceptive access in developing countries in Africa. The session was led by Melinda Gates and United Nations Population Fund, and the speakers discussed ways to reach women to create a strategy that would provide them greater access to forms of birth control. Melinda Gates explained that improving access to birth control would not only improve the women’s lives, it would also make their children healthier and would allow for a thriving family.

Also at the session, several political leaders discussed some of the success stories of implementing birth control access. Countries such as Senegal, the Philippines, Zambia, Indonesia, and Malawi have all taken the initiative to promote progress in the field of family planning and have had great success. Senegal’s budget for their national family planning program has doubled since November 2012. After 15 years, the Philippines was finally able to pass the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act, Zambia created their first family planning program, Indonesia increased funding available for contraceptives, and Malawi also strengthened their family planning program.

The leaders explained that these success stories should be proof that expanding contraceptive access is doable and can save lives, and it’s also very cost-effective. Not only will birth control help improve the lives of the current generation of mothers and babies, implementing a long-term and sustainable plan will improve the lives of the next generations as well.

To ensure that the efforts will remain strong, the Global Poverty Project’s CEO Hugh Evans has announce the It Takes Two campaign, which encourages young men and women to support family planning programs and services, as well as for them to make sure their government continues to support the programs.

– Katie Brockman

Source: allAfrica

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Mobile Technology for Women is a Global Development Must

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Closing the gender gap is high on the priorities of those working in global development and one way to accomplish this is through increasing the availability of mobile technology to women according to Patricia Mechael, Executive Director of mHealthAlliance.  In her years working in global health and development, she saw first hand the realities of poverty and gender inequality. The social status of women has a negative effect on their health and ability to care for their families. Problems such as maternal mortality and unintended pregnancies are often the result of poor maternal health care and poor gender representation in countries.

Mobile technology is working to reduce the gender gap and provide women around the globe a chance at a healthy life. Women who would force abortions to save themselves from another mouth to feed now have access to vital family planning information and commodities through the increase of mobile technology. While less than a decade ago, the mobile penetration rate was in the single digits among low-income nations, today reports indicate it stands at 89%.  The digital divide is shrinking between low and high-income nations, but women are still 21% less likely to own a mobile device compared to men. Millennium Development Goal #3 is to promote gender equality and empower women and providing them with mobile technology is a way to get closer to accomplishing that goal.

Beyond meeting MDG3, mobile technology is key in accomplishing MDG5, improving maternal health. The mHealth Alliance and the World Health Organization have worked to bring about mobile technology to improve maternal health. These projects use a variety of mobile technologies to provide everything from information about vaccines to improving access to essential medicine through reducing depletion of stock.

The advances in mobile technology have come a long way and will continue to be essential to promoting global development and accomplishing the MDGs.  In addition, Mechael is working with her company to come up with ways to further include women in the development and discussion of mobile technology and applications to serve and assist them.

– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: Forbes
Photo: WAHA

Women and Youth Empowerment Matter

Women Empowerment
With women projected to comprise a majority of the world’s urban dwellers and head increasing numbers of households, gender equality in employment, housing, health and education is vital to ensure the prosperity of the cities of the future, according to a new United Nations study. Female and women empowerment is more crucial than ever.

 

Economic Impacts of Women Empowerment

 

“Women are key drivers of economic growth and that wealth in the hands of women leads to much more equitable outcomes in terms of the quality of life of families and communities,” the study, entitled State of Women in Cities Report 2012/13, said. “Addressing the barriers to women’s participation in cities creates a situation where women’s potential is more fully realized and households, communities and governments also reap rewards.

“It is imperative that women and men should enjoy equal rights and opportunities in cities on moral/ethical, economic, and political grounds. This will not only engender women’s well-being but it will increase their individual and collective prosperity as well as the prosperity of the cities in which they reside.”

Produced by the Nairobi-based UN Human Settlements Programme, known as UN-HABITAT, which is mandated to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all, the report also stressed the need to address unemployment and other disadvantages that hobble urban youth.

The report called for policies to enhance gender equality, equity and prosperity of women in cities, noting that cities of the future will comprise a majority female component, especially among people older than 60 and even more so among those older than 80 years.

While underscoring the unpaid caring and social activities that women undertake, such as childcare, caring for the sick, disabled and elderly, washing, cleaning and other community services that allow the urban economy to function and prosper, even if this labour is seldom recognised or valued, the report stressed the “crucially important” economic contributions they make through their paid work

“The ‘feminization’ of the global labour force tends to be associated with urbanisation, with the related concentration of women in export-manufacturing, the service sector and Information, Communication and Technology (ICT),” it said, adding that women, especially the urban poor, are disadvantaged in terms of equal access to employment, housing, health and education, asset ownership, experiences of urban violence, and ability to exercise their rights.

UN-HABITAT’s State of Urban Youth Report 2012/2013 stressed that while the young are “society’s most important and dynamic human resource” – with 1.3 billion between ages 12 and 24, most of them living in urban areas – nearly 45 per cent of them, some 515 million, live on less than $2 a day.

It called for better aligning educational and training systems with the current and future needs of young people, so that they cannot only discern developmental issues but may even be capable of suggesting innovative solutions to deep problems of development and growth.

“Of paramount importance is access to education and opportunities for acquiring skills,” the study added, stressing that youth inequality in urban life is closely related to unequal opportunities in later life and calling for policies that include investment in economic infrastructure, tax incentives, vocational training schemes, and regulations that aim at a more equitable labor market for urban youth.

– Essee Oruma

Source: UN News Centre
Photo: Edumenical Women at the UN

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Reproductive Rights and the Millennium Development Goals

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The world has made huge strides towards reaching the halfway point of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in terms of reducing global poverty. However, there are many African countries that will likely fall short in women’s rights standards established by the United Nations. These countries include Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, Senegal, and Guinea. Many of these areas are deemed the worst places in the world to live in and be a woman.

The women living in these African countries lack fundamental reproductive rights, like family planning, access to contraceptives, and health counseling. When a young woman unintentionally becomes pregnant, she and her child are at risk for numerous health complications. In addition to health risks, the unexpected child puts a severe financial strain on the mother and, if the mother is in school, increases the probability that she will drop out. Thus, reducing the likelihood that the woman will obtain a high paying job later in her life contributing to gender inequality.

Another aspect of reproductive rights is the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Without access to contraceptives, women are at risk for STDs as well as HIV and AIDS. When women have the right to use condoms, the spread of these diseases and viruses is reduced. Condom use will also decrease the number of orphans whose parents die from HIV and AIDS. In spite of all of these benefits reproductive rights have on women and on society in general, many countries still discourage it.

Culture and social norms play an important role in determining women’s rights in many of these African countries. These are complicated issues, but a key way to ensure that a country will change is through foreign investment. By investing in health and education for women, foreign aid organizations are creating a new generation of women who will fight for their rights and demand equality. Although some countries may not meet the MDGs by 2015, with the help of foreign investment, we may see women’s rights taking a huge step forward by 2030, when the UN plans to have ended global poverty.

– Mary Penn
Source: GBN
Photo: AJWS

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Women Thrive Worldwide: Raising Women’s Voices

WomenThriveLogo
Women and children make up the majority of people in the world who live on less than $1 a day. Women are often responsible for providing for the family and keeping them healthy, yet, tragically, they often eat last and eat least. However, if this fragile population is given the chance to realize their full potential, they have the power to lift their communities and, indeed, entire countries out of poverty.

Far too often, global decisions about poverty and developing countries are made without accounting for the needs of women and girls. Without the opportunity to learn skills like reading and writing, it is nearly impossible for them to escape the cycle of poverty.

So what’s the solution?

Women Thrive Worldwide believes that the solution lies in raising women’s voices. Their staff works every day to ensure that the United States is investing in women and girls around the world and listening to what they have to say when it comes to making decisions on the global level by working with grassroots women’s organizations from Afghanistan to the Philippines to Zambia as well as dozens of other countries.

Women Thrive Worldwide purports that real change happens when women and girls are at the table and able to talk about what’s most important to them — issues such as freedom from violence, access to a quality education, and economic opportunity to lift their families out of poverty.

The organizations’s goal is to help bring the voices of women and girls around the world into discussions about the policies that impact their lives. Only then can their needs, priorities, and concerns be meaningfully addressed and effective solutions adopted to reduce poverty at the local level.

– Katie Brockman

Source: Huffington Post
Photo: Women Thrive

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Eva Mendes and Half the Sky

Eva Mendes and Half the Sky

In late 2012, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) created a documentary about women living in developing countries called Half the Sky. This documentary examines the lives of many women in third world countries who have suffered through rape, prostitution, slavery, violent marriages, and other forms of oppression. By interviewing numerous women, Half the Sky is able to construct a common bond that promotes a sense of connectivity for all women and all humanity. Eva Mendes is one of the celebrities participating in this eye-opening project.

While the documentary takes the viewer to many different parts of the world, like Cambodia and Vietnam, Eva travels to Sierra Leone to talk to women about empowerment and to raise awareness of violence against females.

The film advocates women in leadership roles who advocate for women victims of rape and physical abuse. In one instance, a woman, who was abducted at the age of 13 and forced into prostitution, now provides shelter and counseling for girls who escaped from similar situations. Eva Mendes also had the opportunity to interview a particularly inspirational woman who had the courage to press charges against the men who raped her.

Half the Sky focuses on how women are fighting back against gender-based violence and paints a relatively optimistic future. Although in some societies female violence is still the norm, many women are attempting to create and implement the concept of women’s rights. It may be a long battle in some countries, but, as Eva Mendes notes, even small progress is worth celebrating.

It is easy for some documentaries to merely show story after story about women who have suffered from violence; Half the Sky is a different kind of documentary. It shows the viewer that even in the midst of discrimination and struggle, these women are able to overcome their past experiences and emerge ready and eager to help other women. These women refuse to be silent and submissive. That is something that every gender and nationality can relate to.

– Mary Penn

Source: policymic
Video: You Tube

An Unforeseen Effect of Poverty: Violence Against Women

An Unforeseen Effect of Poverty: Violence Against Women
In the wake of the Nirbhaya, a documentary that focuses on the sexual aggression and brutality enacted against an Indian woman in an impoverished region of India, Prime Minister Manmohan has addressed an unforeseen effect of poverty: violence against women.

On Thursday, Manmohan met in Berlin with Angela Merkel to discuss the economy which undoubtedly led to a discussion of the social evils which spring from poverty. Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, addressed the issue of the Indian economy by stating that scientific development and cooperation in the agricultural sector would be pivotal in lasting economic growth and stability in the relatively new democracy.

However, Merkel made note that a theoretical debate about economic solutions and social evils is an easy task when the conversation is being held nearly 5,000 miles away from the sources of issues.

Despite how well-functioning a democracy may be, the recurring trend of social injustice and violence against women continues to center around poverty. Impoverished communities continue to be subject to higher levels of domestic violence and social evils as well as only provide a weaker resistance against terrorism or extremist persuasion.

In the fight to gain rights for women globally, poverty continues to affect women more harshly than men. Rights for women begins at satiating the basic needs of impoverished communities and lifting those communities out of poverty.

– Pete Grapentien

Source: The Times of India
Photo: Times of India

Angelina Jolie Delivers Tribute and Donation to Malala Fund

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At the Women in the World Summit earlier this week, Angelina Jolie paid tribute to Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban in October because of her activism on educating girls and women. Jolie also pledged $200,000 to an educational fund that will provide money to build a girls school in Pakistan.

The Malala Fund, which will be directed by the girl, is set to build a school large enough for 40 girls to attend. In a video played at the conference, Malala told the audience that she hopes the 40 girls educated at her namesake school will turn into 40 million girls, and said it was the “happiest moment of her life.”

In her tribute to Malala, Jolie told the audience of her story and how the Taliban set out to silence Malala and her message, but only “made her stronger.” Other stars to appear at the Women in the World conference include Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, Barbara Walters, and Eva Longoria. Christiane Amanpour was also in attendance and moderated a panel on “The Next Generation of Malalas,” where she spoke to two young Pakistani girls also advocating for girls’ education.

– Christina Kindlon

Source: CBC News

Does Globalization Help or Hurt Women?

Does Globalization Help or Hurt Women?

Some say globalization has excluded or even impoverished women due to disproportionate job loss from an influx of foreign goods into domestic markets. Others say that living standards have improved for women due to the creation of new jobs and economic growth in second and third-world nations. The discussion is nuanced, and there are both improvements and impediments to women’s equality:

Pro-trade Research

  • The World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report (WDR 2012) finds an increase in international trade has tended to increase women’s employment.
  • The value of trade growth goes beyond just job creation. Employment allows greater autonomy for women working outside the home, empowering them with greater decision-making authority – a key shift in development for the woman, and for the next generation.
  • The arrival of garment jobs in Bangladesh increased the probability of a five-year-old girl attending school. Either due to parental awareness to prepare their daughter for skilled work later, or simply because they had additional income.
  • Greater trade has increased job opportunities for women in many countries. This is especially true for manufacturing and service exports, characterized by labor-intensive production.
  • In Korea, the number of women employed in manufacturing grew from 6% in 1970 to around 30% by the early 1990s.
  • In Delhi and Mumbai, call centers now employ more than 1 million people, mostly women (WDR 2012).
  • In Bangladesh, female garment workers have higher self-esteem than other female workers in non-export industries; some even take employment against their family’s wishes.
  • In one study, female garment workers in Bangladesh marry and give birth at a later age.

Trade-inequality Research

  • There is still a wide disparity in the women-to-men wage gap for the same job.
  • In Korea, even with high labor demands, the women-men wage gap narrowed only marginally between 1975 and 1990 (Seguino, 1997).
  • Women are subject to more job insecurity. In Turkey, gross job reallocation is larger for women than men, showing women are subject to more volatile employment status. In Chile the gross job reallocation rates are more than twice as high for women than men.
  • A systemic issue is that greater employment segregation emerges as new industries and companies expand and increase in value. In East Asia, as countries have moved to more skill-intensive manufacturing, there has been a decline in the female manufacturing workforce. Between 1980 and 2008, women’s share of manufacturing employment has declined from 50% to 37% in Chinese Taipei, and from 39% to 32% in the Republic of Korea (Berik, 2008; ILO, 2011).
  • In agriculture, women’s weaker land rights and limited access to productive inputs can limit their opportunities to benefit from greater agricultural trade.
  • While gender gaps in schooling have largely closed, association in different fields of study, and thus different career opportunities, continues to be an issue. In higher education, women are more likely to choose fields related to education and health, but not science, engineering, or construction (WDR 2012).
  • In severely disadvantaged populations, such as remote rural areas, girls still tend to drop out of school more often than boys.
  • Companies under-invest in training female employees, reflecting the view that men are less likely to leave paid work to fulfill domestic responsibilities (Seguino and Growth 2006).
  • In Afghanistan, as one example, women’s mobility is severely limited because they are not allowed to interact with men outside the family, or work outside the home without permission from a male family member, or to own their own land.
Does globalization help or hurt women? It seems the expansion of global markets and trade is quantitatively lifting more women out of poverty and providing new access to opportunities. The impediments for women are indicative of historic sexism, and potentially greater globalization will help eradicate antiquated traditions. Read the full article for a discussion on how to turn the trend toward greater equality – all the time.
– Mary Purcell

Source: ITC
Photo: UFA.lookmart